IndiaUnheardMany Voices, Many Indias2015-02-26T08:13:25Zhttp://www.videovolunteers.org/feed/atom/WordPressVideo Volunteershttp://videovolunteers.orghttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=117052015-02-26T08:13:25Z2015-02-26T06:39:03Z An Anganwadi centre in Bihar has been running in a dilapidated state for 7 years. Everyday, children sit besides crumbling walls and under a makeshift roof. The parents’ appeals to the Child Development Program Officer – that the school urgently be rebuilt — have been ignored consistently. These children are the [...]

An Anganwadi centre in Bihar has been running in a dilapidated state for 7 years. Everyday, children sit besides crumbling walls and under a makeshift roof. The parents’ appeals to the Child Development Program Officer – that the school urgently be rebuilt — have been ignored consistently. These children are the human face of our rural infrastructure crisis. When we see what it is like to try to study in a building where you fear the roof will collapse on your head, we understand that the country’s infrastructure crisis is not just about highways and electricity poles; it’s about children and education and healthcare. The most urgent infrastructure need is, in fact, rebuilding schools, anganwadis and medical facilities in the countryside. This is just as urgent – if not more so – than building new highways and smart cities, but it is massively under-prioritised by the government. While more money has been allocated to sectors like transport and energy, the overall spending on rural development has dropped from 8 per cent to 1 per cent of the Central plan. What further implications will the soon-to-be-released budget have on rural communities?

Politicians continue to pay lip service to Gandhian principles, but Mahatma Gandhi’s focus on creating self-sufficient village economies has been conveniently forgotten. “God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. If an entire nation of 300 million (now 1.3 billion) took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts,” he had warned. Nothing makes the shift from Gandhian ideas of rural prosperity more clear than the Central Government’s development plan. One of the ideas of infrastructural development floated by the new government is the creation of 100 Smart Cities (a.k.a, 100 ‘little Singapores’) as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernising the existing mid-sized cities. Though very little detail is given, it is certain this is a plan designed for urban India — which consists of less than one-third of India’s population.

A dedicated website to the smart cities project states that the 31% of the population currently living in urban areas is responsible for 60% of the GDP. It is expected that by 2051, 50% of the population will still be living in rural areas, but the vast majority of GDP – 75 to 80% — is expected to come from the cities. These numbers suggest that the plan is to make rural areas increasingly less important to the economy as time goes on. This surely means that the people themselves living in rural areas will become increasingly less important; increasingly marginalized. (And we won’t even get into the question here of whether India’s and the world’s environment can sustain this plan.) Whether one has to cross a river to reach the main road or someone is living in an area where it is difficult to distinguish between roads and fields, it won’t matter.

Community Correspondent Nitu Chakiya has shown how the absence of a proper road has left people disillusioned with the democratic process and angry at all politicians in Orissa no matter what party they come from. Though many complaints about this particularly bad road were ignored, CC Nitu mobilised the community and got the authorities to take action. “When people see that someone is trying to work for them, they help in all possible ways,” she told us later. Adding further, she said, “Most of the people don’t even file complaints anymore because they don’t think it will lead anywhere.” Nitu, here, in this small victory, has managed to restore some faith that the government can be made to work. She will soon be making another video about the successful completion of the road, and her work in trying to restore people’s faith in the democratic process.

Like Nitu, the CCs at Video Volunteers are not far-flung reporters trying to understand the problem like an outsider; they are living the problems they are trying to highlight. Every single one of the 170 Community Correspondents is someone who lives in the same areas they are trying to report on. It is of their immediate interest to change the prevalence of mis-governance.

Even though there have been schemes and policies that have tried to develop rural India — building roads, providing electricity and water, and creating opportunities for employment — a lot still needs to be done to bridge the widening gap. To try and tackle malnutrition, maternal health centres are needed. Literacy rates will not rise without school buildings with proper facilities. There is no point of having metros running in smart cities if the villages aren’t even connected by roads.

In the last financial year, the Smart Cities project was allocated INR 7060 crores (USD 1.7 billion), while the Central Government’s scheme responsible for building rural roads, Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojana, got double of that amount. It seems here that the program, which is connecting the villages with roads, has been rightly given the priority. But what one has to consider is that the former is for 100 cities and the latter for 600,000 villages.

The vast difference between what the communities need and what is being built is appalling. Policies that aren’t inclusive will not change anything for the vast majority of Indians. The satellite cities can create job opportunities for migrant labourers but they will truly smart only when they can provide affordable housing so that people don’t have to squat on pavements. And for that to happen, it is important to include communities in this debate. Without that, we can only pretend to be developing towards a brighter tomorrow.

]]>0Video Volunteershttp://videovolunteers.orghttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116962015-02-25T12:40:05Z2015-02-24T12:14:20Z12 million toilets were to be built in the last financial year, but the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is going to fall short on that promise by half. Before the budget, we take stock of the sanitary woes of India through the eyes of our Community Correspondents.

The last few months have repeatedly featured celebrities and business people and politicians with brooms in hand, cleaning a road or a sidewalk. These photo ops have been the major victory of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign) that was started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by cleaning a road near Rajghat in New Delhi. The Campaign aims to clean up more than 4000 towns and build 12 million toilets this year. Its vision is of a ‘clean India’ by 2 October 2019, the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Poor sanitation in India has been a cause for concern since before independence. Mahatma Gandhi, as pointed out by The Economist, had said that good sanitation was more important than independence. Though the new Prime Minister should be credited for bringing the issue of sanitation to debate, the magnitude of the problem requires more than that. Consider this: of the 1 billion people in the world who lack access to a toilet, India accounts for 600 million. And though a major one, open defecation is only part of the problem. Lack of drainage systems is equally hazardous.

Arun Jaitley, while presenting his first budget in the parliament, set the goal of ending the practice of defecating in open by 2019. Building toilets and ending open defecation will be of immense importance,since poor sanitation is intricately linked to malnutrition and stunted growth, and safety of women. But it will be a tough act to pull off on the government’s part. As of yet, more than a 120 million households lack toilet. 70 percent of rural and 13 percent of urban population don’t have access to one. This results into encephalitis, diarrhoea and poor immunity levels. India, not to anyone’s surprise then, tops the chart of malnutrition in South Asian countries. So what is causing this huge mess?

In the reports made by the Community Correspondents of Video Volunteers, we clearly see that rural India lacks usable, working toilets Sometimes because of the lack of a sewer drains, sometimes because of infrastructural costs or many times out of inexplicable ignorance, the authorities have failed to build operational toilets, often in places that also lack primary health clinics. Not only we are allowing for the diseases to spread, we are also shockingly unprepared for the health consequences.

Community Correspondent Anita Bharti from Uttar Pradesh, who recently reported that there isn’t even a single toilet in the village of Kasidaha, echoes these very problems. “Women have to venture out of the home in the middle of the night sometimes,” she says. Uttar Pradesh, it should be mentioned, was where two women were left hanging from a tree after being raped and murdered. Victims of the infamous Badaun case were attacked while they were going to the field, which is the open toilet of the neighbourhood. The state of UP is also a high scorer on malnutrition and stunted growth charts.

A prime constituency of Uttar Pradesh that emanates embarrassment with unsanitary conditions is Varanasi. In this context, the miasmic city of Varanasi is not just important because the Prime Minister himself represents it in the parliament, but also because it had managed to incense even Mohandas K Gandhi. In 1927, Mother India, a book written by Katheriene Mayo portrayed the city (then called Benaras) in such light that Gandhi condemned the portrayal in a written statement. “All of them,” Mayo wrote, “are walking menageries of intestinal parasites, which inevitably tell when some infection, such as pneumonia or influenza (quite common then), comes along.” Mayo’s reader would have agreed with Gandhi that sanitation was a more urgent issue than independence.

Now, after nearly 70 years since Independence, Varanasi is only slightly better and that slightness is negated by population boom. Widespread and regular defecating in open areas, which is depressingly common in Varanasi, is a public health hazard. The Prime Minister likes to prioritise toilets over temples in his speeches, but his constituency doesn’t even pretend to.

A recent study by Dean Spears, an economist at the Princeton University, shows that in villages that have more toilets, 6-year-olds are much more likely to recognise letters and simple numbers. This again, is reflected in the literacy rates of Uttar Pradesh, which is ranked at 29th in India.

However you put it, poor sanitation is making things worse for the citizens and the country. The Finance Minister and the Prime Minister should be applauded to at least bring this issue to front, because apparently no one wants to talk about it. This is a topic of National Un-interest — no politician campaigns around it, and the public conscience is ruffled only by infrequent international reports. Even the philanthropists aren’t easily excited with making things cleaner.

Another thing about sanitation that no one wants to talk about is how intricately it is tangled with the issue of casteism. The lack of sanitation or the need for adequate sanitation cannot be separated from the lives of those involved in the sanitation work: most of whom (if not all) are Dalits. If the lives of those suffering from lack of sanitation are appalling, think of the lives of the sanitation workers. Campaigns like the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan cannot afford to miss this crucial link between sanitation and caste.

Seen through the video reports filed by Community Correspondents like Anita Bharti in Uttar Pradesh, the situation demands more than media attention and public service announcements, it demands government action. Many facets of poor Standard of Living indicators point back to the issue of sanitation. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is the right diagnosis of the problem, but more importantly, the cure has to start now. But this is a job not for the government alone. The persistence of this problem has been denied for decades by the citizenry alike. For decades, the denial and disregard for hygiene has multiplied the problem by a magnitude. Along with the government’s plan, a change in the mindset is required. Awareness workshops,Training and seminars must be started in rural and urban areas.

A recent paper written by a group of health experts from the London School of Hygiene, WHO, UNICEF, U.N. Population Fund and WaterAid, said that in the new post-2015 Development Goals, maternal and newborn health must be linked with access to water, sanitation and hygiene in order to be successful. Going by that, Clean India Campaign is only the first step in the right direction.

]]>0Amitahttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116932015-02-24T05:37:55Z2015-02-24T05:37:55ZOn 29th July 2011, Magdalene, a 15-year-old girl from Mailpidi village, was walking back home after school. On her way, she was arrested by the police. “Stop pretending to be a student” the police told her as they went through her school bag and roughed her up. Her crime? Bank robbery; armed conflict with the police; [...]

]]>On 29th July 2011, Magdalene, a 15-year-old girl from Mailpidi village, was walking back home after school. On her way, she was arrested by the police. “Stop pretending to be a student” the police told her as they went through her school bag and roughed her up. Her crime? Bank robbery; armed conflict with the police; and being a Maoist.

These kinds of stories aren’t rare, or even uncommon in Jharkhand. The state tops the list of over-crowded jails in the country; 70 percent of criminals in there are under-trial, and false conviction rate is alarmingly high too. Activists fighting for land rights, and protesting against state’s use of brute force in its attempts to curb the Maoist insurgency, are often put behind bars. People are abducted at the mere suspicion of sympathizing with the Maoists.

Magdalene’s village, Mailpidi, is nestled between the Elephant Corridor and the Saranda-Singhbum range in Jharkhand. No roads or vehicles go there. . Magdalene shifted to Murhu in the next district and rented a place to stay with her brother so that she could go to school easily. Little did she know that her plans of getting a better education were going to be put on hold by the Jharkhand police.

After being arrested, Magdalene, baffled and hapless, was taken to the Khunti jail and transferred to the Namkum Women’s Probation Home. She stayed here for 10 months and for the first 9, no one — not her family, not her friends, not her teachers — knew where she was.

“But why did they think she was a Maoist? Did she do something?” I asked Amita, our Community Correspondent who, among other activists, was involved in getting Magdalene out of jail.

“This was not the first time she was arrested” Amita reveals, “She was arrested in 2010 after a tussle at the Murhu State Bank between some people and the police. She wasn’t involved in any of it; she wasn’t even there. She and her friends were visiting her sister who lived nearby.”

Amita continues, “They went to see a cricket match at her sister’s house when that shootout happened. The police came around to do a routine search and found a bunch of kids in school uniforms who weren’t originally from Murhu. They concluded that they must be Maoists and took them all into custody.” Magdalene and her friends spent 3 months in jail.

It took a lot of convincing from her teachers,who clarified to the police that there had been a mistake, for the four students to be released.They put the incident behind them and attempted to move on with their lives. Magdalene went back to her school and continued to live with her brother in Murhu.

July 2011, Magdalene found herself in a women’s probation home again. “There was no evidence against her. It seems that the Superintendent of Police instigated the other officers to arrest her. The charge sheet from the event in 2010 does not even have her name on it,” says Alistair Bodro an activist who has worked closely with Magdalene and many others like her.

“I am sure if you took a look around jails in Khunti and others in Jharkhand, you’d find a lot of the people who have been falsely accused of being conspirators against the state. They are poor and nobody comes to bother the police if they disappear.” he says. The police have been arresting people on unsubstantiated grounds to mount figures. The jacked-up jail population of Jharkhand touts the efforts of the state police in fighting insurgents, but a closer look reveals that democratic principles are being jeopardized by the state as much as its enemy.

It was a matter of chance that Alistair found Magdalene at the probation home. Once he had the information, he was able to involve enough people to get her out of the jail. Two years later Magdalene is beginning to put back together her plans that were rudely interrupted.

Her family was convinced that she should just stay at home and forget about completing school. “But she’s not going to give up so easily,” says Amita; who, along with other activists, was able to secure admission for Magdalene at the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidhyalaya. The District Commissioner and school principal have been very supportive through the entire process.

Even as Magdalene attempts to get on with her studies and make new friends, the court case against her continues to drag on. She is currently supposed to appear at the court in Khunti every month. The ordeal, both Amita and Magdalene’s teachers agree, is detrimental to her emotional well being as well as her studies.“Cases like this one need to be brought forward. More people need to know about the state’s repression otherwise it will never stop,” Alistair said.

]]>0Shabnam Begumhttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116892015-02-20T11:12:46Z2015-02-20T11:12:46ZFebruary 20; Sunderpur, Varanasi On the World Social Justice Day, in line with the theme of ending poverty, human trafficking and forced labour Community Correspondent Shabnam tells an awe-inspiring story of a woman, who is trying to give education to slum kids in Varanasi. When Pratibha Singh followed a bunch of kids who used to [...]

On the World Social Justice Day, in line with the theme of ending poverty, human trafficking and forced labour Community Correspondent Shabnam tells an awe-inspiring story of a woman, who is trying to give education to slum kids in Varanasi.

When Pratibha Singh followed a bunch of kids who used to beg for food and money in her neighbourhood to their slum, she saw far too clearly what was needed to be done. The future of these kids was a grim eventuality if they weren’t given education. Pratibha started a primary school and 20 kids come to study regularly. She also organises activities to induce learning habits and give the kids a healthy meal. The kids who come to study are those who can’t afford to pay the tuition fees at school. Pratibha covers all costs from her personal savings, so that these kids can also have a shot at their future.

There are many more kids who want to join, but for that to happen, Pratibha needs your help. Today, you can pledge your support to Pratibha and help ensure these kids get the education everyone is entitled to.

]]>0Amitahttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116872015-02-20T05:38:35Z2015-02-20T05:36:22ZFebruary 19; Timla, Jharkhand In June 2010, Mahadeo Munda was sitting under Mahua tree when police officers approached him and started asking questions. “After that they put me in a vehicle. I don’t know where they went,” he told Community Correspondent Amita Tuti later. Mahadeo is a farmer in Tilma district of Jharkhand, and when [...]

In June 2010, Mahadeo Munda was sitting under Mahua tree when police officers approached him and started asking questions. “After that they put me in a vehicle. I don’t know where they went,” he told Community Correspondent Amita Tuti later. Mahadeo is a farmer in Tilma district of Jharkhand, and when the police took him, he couldn’t think of any reason behind his predicament. After some time, the policemen asked Mahadeo to get down and fill their bottles with water. They stopped at Koronjotola, a town few miles away from Tilma, where Mahadeo lived. As he got down, a man started thrashing him with a bamboo stick. “They tied my hands behind me with my own towel,” he recalled. “Then they took me back to the vehicle and started to torture me. Three men sat on my chest and tried to break my fingers.” He pleaded his innocence but nobody listened. “The pain was unbearable. I was crying loudly.” Mahadeo was kept blindfolded for about a week. “When the Police In charge removed my blindfold, I realised I was in Bundu (a town in the district of Ranchi).”

Mahadeo’s ordeal was a mistake. The men who abducted Mahadeo were from the Central Reserve Police Force. The CRPF is deployed in Jharkhand to fight armed Maoist rebels. “The police In charge started scolding them. ‘You CRPF people do not have any brains,’” Mahadeo remembered the inspector saying. Mahadeo was taken to be a Maoist. Tribals of Jharkhand are often mistaken to be Maoists, for no good reason. The state is fighting an enemy it doesn’t recognise; the Maoists hide in the midst of tribal communities; and civilians like Mahadeo face the brunt of this conflict. No one denies it is important to curb an insurgency that has a stated purpose of overthrowing a democratically elected government; but no one endorses the use of torture and brute force as a method either.

At the inspector’s instructions, Mahadeo was untied. The police was looking for him all this while. He was taken to another police station in jailed. Why, you ask? You see, it is easier for the state to jail a tribal than to admit it is abducting civilians and may have even committed human rights violations during interrogations. Mahadeo paid an advocate INR 12000, a substantial sum for a tribal farmer, and finished the invented case. “If I were to miss even a single date of my hearings while out on bail, they could throw be back inside a cell. So I figured it would be better to finish the case by paying money.” Mahadeo’s fears weren’t for no reason: Jharkand has recorded maximum over crowding of its jails in the country. This is because of the predominant percentage of under-trials prisoners there, counted above 70 per cent.

Government proceedings are a scary proposition for most tribals even when they are fighting a just cause. That’s what Mahadeo did. And that’s what most of those who get entangled in cases like these do. “So many people who are caught in false cases end up destroying their lives,” CC Amita says. The insurgency doesn’t seem to be coming to an end any time soon, but the state needs to fine-tune its strategy. The use of torture must be condemned. “What made the CRPF people think that he was a Maoist?” CC Amita asked during a conversation later. I couldn’t think of anything.

]]>0Amitahttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116812015-02-19T05:16:31Z2015-02-18T12:38:06ZFebruary 18th, Salgadih Village, Khunti District, Jharkhand The National Old Age Pension Scheme provides financial security to over 19.2 million people over the age of 60 in India. For many, the small yet vital sum comes after jumping through many loopholes in the system. Community Correspondent Amita Tuti found one such case in Salgadih and [...]

The National Old Age Pension Scheme provides financial security to over 19.2 million people over the age of 60 in India. For many, the small yet vital sum comes after jumping through many loopholes in the system. Community Correspondent Amita Tuti found one such case in Salgadih and recorded a video, which eventually helped Omto Devi and three other women receive the benefits due to them.

In 2013 the four women had been mysteriously stopped receiving their monthly old-age pension, a sum of around INR 500 per month, from the government. This pension was their only source of income. On visiting the bank, they found that they had been declared dead in the beneficiary list. The inspector who had visited the village to corroborate the list had not found them at home and therefore struck them off, no questions asked.

A 2013 survey report of the National Old Age Pension Scheme in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh confirms that there are several delays in getting elderly their pensions- this includes delays from the bank; difficulties in getting to banks as well as a few instances of corruption. It lays down certain recommendations to improve the system including an increase in the sum given out as the present amount is inadequate to cover medical and food expenses.

For two years the women faced extreme financial hardships, becoming dependant on the goodwill of their family members and neighbours for meeting daily costs. Not confident of visiting officials, they let the matter be. Amita who has made other videos on challenges faced by people in accessing benefits says that there are some fundamental ways in which the system is flawed. She says:

“Many of the lower level officials don’t do their jobs properly. In this case for instance, there should have been a public notice of the officer coming to do the check, the panchayat sevak (administrator at the village level) should have had a proper list and should have been aware of the situation with Omto Devi. This wasn’t the case. Officers at a Block and District level in turn depend on accounts from the field but rarely go to visit confirm whether things are working as they should.”

Amita visited the office of the Block Development Officer and the Chief Officer with the video. She took along Omto Devi and the other beneficiaries. Kanuram Nag, the Chief Officer was quick to help once he became aware of the mistake that had been made. Immediately he got the women’s name added on the list. Two months later the money (a revised sum of INR 600 per month) started appearing in their bank accounts.

“I’ve never worked on a story where change has come so fast, so this was a new and rather heartening experience. For both, the women and me it reinforced the belief that if officials are co-operative and attentive when problems are brought to their notice, challenges will be overcome. For people in my community, who feel scared and unconfident to approach officials with problems, this is an important learning, one that reinforces the importance of starting such dialogues,” shares Amita.

]]>0Video Volunteershttp://videovolunteers.orghttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116762015-02-17T12:52:05Z2015-02-17T12:52:05ZFebruary 17; Rampur, Jharkhand The Village Health Centre in Jamidh has been closed for a year, and the doctor only visits occasionally. Residents of Jamidh have to go as far as 60 kilometres for medical attention. “The doctor only comes during child deliveries, he doesn’t bother otherwise,” said Katirna Bage, who lives in the village. [...]

The Village Health Centre in Jamidh has been closed for a year, and the doctor only visits occasionally. Residents of Jamidh have to go as far as 60 kilometres for medical attention. “The doctor only comes during child deliveries, he doesn’t bother otherwise,” said Katirna Bage, who lives in the village. Community Correspondent Jiramuni Devi is trying to approach the authorities so that the only health centre in the village opens and poor residents don’t have to go miles away for their medical needs.

You can help CC Jiramuni by calling Masha Lakra, Block Medical Officer of Kamdara, at +91-9693 113 731 and ask that he look into this matter.

]]>0Vijaya Maitriyahttp://www.videovolunteers.org//?author=19http://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116732015-02-17T11:14:16Z2015-02-17T11:14:16ZFebruary 17; Koderma, Jharkhand An Anganwadi centre has been in Behradih village block for 10 years now, but no women or children in the village have ever received any benefits that such a centre should accord for. Babita Devi, a dalit resident, lost her 2-year-old daughter because of malnutrition. The purpose of an Anganwadi centre [...]

An Anganwadi centre has been in Behradih village block for 10 years now, but no women or children in the village have ever received any benefits that such a centre should accord for. Babita Devi, a dalit resident, lost her 2-year-old daughter because of malnutrition. The purpose of an Anganwadi centre is to fight health menaces like malnutrition in rural areas, and help more women like Babita. But Koderma is a grand failure in this regard.

You can help Community Correspondent Vinti Vishwakarma in her efforts to get the Anganwadi centre in the village functional, so that hundreds of women like Babita and their families can be benefitted the scheme designed for them by the government.

Call the District Commissioner K. Ravi Kumar at +91-9334 935 997 and ask him to get the centre working.

]]>0Madhuri Chauhanhttp://videovolunteers.orghttp://www.videovolunteers.org/?p=116712015-02-16T12:48:09Z2015-02-16T12:48:09ZFebruary 16; Khushinagar, UP Suman, along with her three sisters, had to leave her house following the financial constraints after her mother’s demise. “I collected the body and cremated her,” Suman, who is in her teens, told Community Correspondent Madhuri Chauhan. Since their father had already passed away, the four sisters went on to live [...]

Suman, along with her three sisters, had to leave her house following the financial constraints after her mother’s demise. “I collected the body and cremated her,” Suman, who is in her teens, told Community Correspondent Madhuri Chauhan. Since their father had already passed away, the four sisters went on to live with neighbours. According to the Indira Awas Yojana, Suman’s family was supposed to get a house to live in, but the bureaucratic processes were making it hard. CC Madhuri, with the help of women in the community, followed the matter relentlessly with Block-level authorities. Finally, the administration came into action and the brick-layered house is being built for the sisters. Despite all the unfortunate happenings in their young lives, CC Madhuri has been able to restore a sense of hope — in concrete form of the house. “It was possible because of the efforts of women in my community and the video you made on the problems I was facing,” says Suman.

]]>2014 was a watershed year for women, all across the world. The ideas about the repression of women evolved into a debate that engrossed more people than ever before. From the kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls, to the misogynistic killings in Isla Vista; from the issue of sexism in video games, to instances of campus rape and domestic violence; it was a year of churning. Celebrities like Beyoncé and Emma Watson spoke hearteningly about Feminism, and MalalaYousafzai won the Nobel Peace prize. We registered major victories in calling out people like Bill Cosby and Jian Ghomeshi for their repeated assaults on women. This was the year when feminism came, finally, at the forefront of public imaginations. As it came to an end, Time magazine called 2014 the “the Best Year for Women Since the Dawn of Time” and in a long essay for the Guardian, Rebecca Solnit wrote, “Women are coming out of a silence that lasted so long no one can name a beginning for it. This noisy year is not the end – but perhaps it is the beginning of the end.”

The reverberations of these shifting tides were also felt in India. Actress Deepika Padukone’s stand against the caricaturisation of her sexual attributes by the Times of India was applauded and appended by one and all. But it would be unfair to deem such importance to 2014, especially in India, if similar sorties hadn’t surfaced from the rural hinterland, where the poor and the marginalised live. And this is where the last year really starts to look like a moment of change.

This deluge of gender discussions is close to our hearts here at Video Volunteers. We’ve always believed in smashing skewed statistics through our work. With over 50% female Community Correspondents, specifically from socially marginalized communities, IndiaUnheard has changed the way in which journalism is practiced.

“They said I was the first person who did anything to help them. They were so skeptical about what a small, frail woman would do, when obviously, no one was willing to listen. Then, I told them how IndiaUnheard works.” Reena, a former manual labourer in Katihar, Bihar, took to video activism with great aplomb bringing much needed relief to survivors of a flood in her state.

Our Correspondents report on stories and issues they have often lived themselves.

Not only are they representing their communities at a national discourse, they are also reporting on crucial issues of gender violence and discrimination, raising their voices, fighting for their rights and empowering their communities. The high number of women Community Correspondents means that a community, maybe for the first time, is looking up to a woman. Aspiring to be like her.

Saroj Paraste, from Madhya Pradesh, understood early on in her life that knowledge was power, and that’s where her people suffered. Supported by her husband and in-laws, she worked for over a decade going door-to-door spreading awareness among her tribal community in Jabalpur. Despite being barely literate, Saroj’s fiestystand for her people’s rights won her a spot as a Community Correspondent.Not only did she film several videos empowering and mobilizing her people to demand their right to health, hygiene and education, but she also actively followed up every video to try and facilitate change for her community. Her dedication to their empowerment led her people to collectively request her to stand for village council elections. Saroj won the elections. Humble to the hilt, Saroj insists all of her achievements have been possible only because of her community’s collective support.

“I made this video because I am one of them,” said Mary Nisha, from Godda, in Jharkhand. Her community is currently embroiled in a bitter battle for their rights to their land and a peaceful life, and Mary Nisha makes videos to show the silent and non violent protests her community has been staging against Central Coalfields Limited. By believing in the possibility that each individual can contribute to changing this world, each of us are participating in a peaceful revolution. Wielding cameras for change has been a way for many of these activists, who now are empowered to collectively change their communities lives and perspectives.

The great joy that last year has brought for those fighting for the equal status of women in the society, has given them hope. But this is far from over. As Solnit wrote in the Guardian, perhaps it is the beginning of the end. And to see an end to disturbing social evils like violence against women and female foeticide, long struggle is required. As you read this, our CCs are knocking the doors of government offices — exposing corruption and seeking justice. The great big leap of 2014 needs to be sustained this year, and then next year, and so on. For so long the discrimination has gone on that it is not possible to eradicate in a matter of months.

Says Nirmala, another firebrand women’s rights activist, “As an activist, it is my duty to tackle such situations. As a Community Correspondent, it is my job. As a woman, it is my responsibility to educate & advocate against crimes against women…I have realized that my obligation is to change this world we live in.”